Foreword Reviews just informed me that Glorious Times: Adventures of the Craighead Naturalists has been selected as a Finalist in its 2016 Book of the Year Awards: https://awards.forewordreviews.com/books/glorious-times-adventures-of-the-craighead-naturalists/
The books considered for awards are books from smaller publishers, including university presses. Foreword explains their purpose this way:
In the publishing industry, we talk a lot about independent publishers. What exactly does that mean? Well, it’s hard to define. In the strictest sense, we mean anyone other than the powerful Big Five: Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. Though they publish some important, thought-provoking titles, they hardly need help bringing them to market.
On Saturday, April 1st, at 2:00 p.m., I will be giving my first book talk ever at Midtown Scholars Bookstore in Harrisburg, PA. This talk will be about a small portion of my new book—it contains too much information for a single talk to cover, so I’m focusing on how teenagers can impact the country.
Sometimes information can be found for students whose student files have been lost . Emma Strong is an example. Her name appears in the student file for Frank DeFoe, whom she married after leaving the school. Her name also appears on some lists, however those entries are for other people named Strong or Armstrong or for students not strong (healthy) enough to remain at Carlisle. Emma Strong’s name appears several times in Carlisle Indian School publications but none of those articles are found by this search.
Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) for Glorious Times: Adventures of the Craighead Naturalists have arrived and I’ve sent copies to the important prepress reviewers. Reviews from some of them could assure significant orders from bookstores and libraries. Arriving just ahead of the ARCs was a huge increase in postal rates. Earlier this year, I could mail books in padded Priority envelopes anywhere in the U.S. for $5.75. Now it costs $6.80! That’s an increase of over a dollar for each potential reviewer. These costs assume postage is purchased on-line and that you print the label yourself on a large sticker. It costs more than this if you pay at the post office.
As my book on the Craighead Naturalists inches toward publication, a cover is needed. Using a single photo for a background image wouldn’t work because the Craigheads are identified with so many things. A collage of several photos would be too cluttered. Original artwork is needed. The rub there is that I have no artistic talent whatsoever. References to a site named Fiverr.com piqued my interest. Each job (gig in Fiverr parlance) starts at $5 and goes up from there with addons, typically such things as higher resolution, commercial license, color, etc. After spending $31.50 (Fiverr charges a 50 cent commission, sometimes more, on each gig) on an unsuitable cover, I decided that going with the basic five dollar gig to see if the artist would likely generate something useful before purchasing any addons. Those can be bought later once you’ve decided the artist is the one you want to use. To speed up the process, I ordered basic gigs from three artists to see if any of them would likely create a useable cover design. Soon, I saw that a book cover designer wasn’t what I needed. Fiverr book cover designers do not usually create artwork for you, they use stock photos or artwork you provide.
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